Customer Reviews

American Stonehenge

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So I'm working in a record store in 1978. I am into folk music, progressive rock, punk rock, classic rock, jazz and classical, and electronic avant garde. (I still own four thousand lp's, that live in a rock maple and walnut custom made shrine--together with the David Perry stereo--but that's another story)

This little beauty comes into the store and it looks good. I don't know how people discover new music today but it used to be about browsing the 12" covers and reading the copy on the back. Having the privelige of listening to any album I desired, I sliced this one open and it got my attention. Eventually, it broke my heart. Some years later I would sit with a bottle in my hand crying over this album.

Robin Williamson was part of a brilliant accoustic duo called the incredible string band back in the sixties. He returns in the late seventies with the Merry Band, kind of an accoustic Celtic Folk orchestra. They are diverse, fantastic musicians and the combination is still quite fresh.

But it's the lyrics that got me. Here is a little sample:

"Some of us died, some got dry, here am I still singing on the stage-
I never turned my cheek but I turned the page, and watched the way the wind blows"

Brilliant, deep and quite often laugh out loud funny--the Merry Band is a real treat. Robin is a Scientologist, but he'll get over that someday.

persevere

In the build-up to his masterpiece "Glint at the Kindling" Robin produced two albums: "Journey's Edge" and "American Stonehenge". Both albums show he was still looking for the right formula, even though he had already collected the right musicians for the job.

"American Stonehenge", though more in tune with the mentioned "Glint", is less satisfying than "Journey's Edge", mostly, I think, because of a lack of consistency. Some songs are quite good, especially the instrumental pieces "Port London Early" and "Her Scattered Gold" and the Celtic-flavoured "These islands green" and "When evening shadows". Also, the whisky-praising and good-humoured song "Rab's woollen testament" is a definite highlight on this album. The other songs are shaky. Somehow, Robin doesn't sound right when trying to incorporate elements of other than British or Irish nature in his songs (and I think that's true to this very day).

This album presents us the work of a man who doesn't know if he wants to be a Scottish American or an American Scotsman. In the end, as we all know, his Britishness took over completely and I think we can be very satisfied with that result. Considering this, "American Stonehenge" can be seen as a sort of diary of a man who was already on his way home.

Hans Wigman